Hold Congress Accountable

Knowledge is power. It makes sure people understand what is happening to their country, and how they can make a difference. FreedomWorks University will give you the tools to understand economics, the workings of government, the history of the American legal system, and the most important debates facing our nation today. Enroll in FreedomWorks University today!

Search FreedomWorks

Resources

Blog

It's Not Gridlock That is Blocking a Carbon Tax, It's Science and Economics

This is an open letter to William D. Ruckelshaus, Lee M. Thomas, William K. Reilly and Christine Todd Whitman. You, the former directors of the EPA who were appointed by Republican presidents, recently wrote an op-ed in the New York Times titled, A Republican Case for Climate Action. In this opinion piece, the four of you write of your conviction that action can no longer be delayed on the climate, and that the only reason we don't have a chance to pass a carbon tax is because of partisan gridlock. With all due respect to your years of service to our nation, I wish to remind you all of one inconvenient truth: you are political appointees. You are experts in neither science nor economics - your only expertise is in the political arena.

Your opinions, therefore, are formed neither in a scientific nor an economic framework. Let me be blunt: not one of you has ever actually pursued any rigorous scientific or economic course of academic study. Your educational backgrounds are wholly unrelated to the relevant fields when discussing climate science and carbon taxing schemes.

In your NYT op-ed, you write,

There is no longer any credible scientific debate about the basic facts: our world continues to warm, with the last decade the hottest in modern records, and the deep ocean warming faster than the earth’s atmosphere. Sea level is rising. Arctic Sea ice is melting years faster than projected.

The costs of inaction are undeniable. The lines of scientific evidence grow only stronger and more numerous. And the window of time remaining to act is growing smaller: delay could mean that warming becomes “locked in.”

A market-based approach, like a carbon tax, would be the best path to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, but that is unachievable in the current political gridlock in Washington. Dealing with this political reality, President Obama’s June climate action plan lays out achievable actions that would deliver real progress. He will use his executive powers to require reductions in the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the nation’s power plants and spur increased investment in clean energy technology, which is inarguably the path we must follow to ensure a strong economy along with a livable climate.

Given your lack of background in the rigors of scientific study, it is inconceivable that the four of you can claim any knowledge of what debate exists in the scientific community. There is strong evidence that the warming trend to which you refer either has stopped or was, at least in part, manufactured by prominent scientists who earn enormous federal grants to come up with data supporting the theory of anthropogenic global warming.

Your claims that sea levels are rising and Arctic sea ice is "melting years faster than projected" are so full of holes that it causes one to wonder if you've ever read a peer-reviewed scientific study. And calling a new tax on energy a "market-based approach" ignores the enormous effects on our economy such a scheme would cause.

Conservatives do not oppose carbon taxes because they are anti-science or do not care about the environment. Quite the contrary, in fact. Conservatives oppose carbon taxes for two very strong reasons that you would do well not to dismiss so blithely:

1. Any carbon tax would have a far-reaching and compounding negative impact on our economy, and is regressive in nature - carbon taxes disproportionately hurt the poor in a wide variety of ways; and2. The science, despite what Al Gore may have told you, is far from conclusive. Consensus is irrelevant to the scientific process. The scientific process, when properly utilized, fits a theory to the facts as observed - NOT the other way around.

In closing, you all would do well to listen to all the voices in your party, as well as all the voices in the fields of science and economics, before casting judgment on Conservatives who oppose such an economically inhumane policy.

"There is no longer any credible scientific debate about the basic facts..."

There is plenty of scientific debate about the basic facts. There's little debate that the earth warmed over that last 30 years of the 20th century, but how much of that was due to man's activity, what will be the effects of a doubling of atmospheric CO2, and whether costly mitigation efforts or adaptation (or some combination) is the best policy, are very much in debate. It's disingenuous to assert that the least important part of the theory - past temperature trends - garner broad agreement and use that to imply the most controversial and parts do as well. There's very little evidence that the predictions about future temperatures will be accurate, and what little historical record has been produced since they were made indicates they've over estimated climate sensitivity to CO2.

A federal judge has granted a preliminary injunction against the EPA, stopping a controversial water regulation in 13 states. The states in question are suing to stop the new water rule, which would violate private property rights and substantially harm individuals and businesses alike. The injunction stops the EPA from enforcing its rule until the results of the lawsuit are decided.

The Fourth Circuit has joined a growing number of courts, including the Supreme Court, in slapping down actions by the EPA. The court recently denied the EPA’s challenge to a discovery order from a federal judge in West Virginia.

On June 29 President Obama published a blog on Huffington Post announcing his “plan to extend overtime protections to nearly 5 million workers in 2016, covering all salaried workers making up to about $50,400 next year.”

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled the EPA was unreasonable when it did not consider costs when it decided to regulate mercury emissions from power plants. The Court, in an opinion by Justice Scalia, held that the EPA must consider costs, including compliance costs, when deciding whether a regulation is appropriate and necessary.

As one of our over 6.9 million FreedomWorks activists nationwide, I urge you to contact your representative and ask him or her to vote YES on the Ratepayer Protection Act, H.R. 2042. This bill would delay the EPA from implementing some of the most economically destructive emissions standards they have ever devised.

Be sure to check out this commentary in Investor’s Business Daily written by Harry Alford, president and CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, titled, “EPA Clean Power Plan Will Hit Blacks And Hispanics Hardest.” He discusses how Obama’s war on energy is disproportionately hurting minority communities.